If you’ve read this blog for any time at all, you know that I adore Petra, my greyhound. She’s come so far in the 20 months since I adopted her. I could seriously go on and on about the ways she’s improved. Yap, yap, yap.

But there are days, yo. There are days.

LIKE TODAY.

When Petra suddenly and inexplicably gets tweaky. Instead of lying down on her rug, she hovers behind me as I type. She makes a clackety yawning movement with her jaw. When I turn around, she stares at me, unblinking. I let her outside; I let her back in. Still, she stands and stares. I get up; she follows me. Her nails make a clicking sound on the floor. I turn around; she stares at me. I let her outside; I let her back in. I walk to the sink to get a glass of water. She follows me: click, click, click. I turn around: she’s one inch away from me, staring me down. She faux-yawns. Clackety clack.

I want to scream, but I don’t.

Instead, I pretend like this is a Great Big Joke, and that if I just play along, it will all be okay. Wink, wink.

Hey, Tweaker.

Sit down already.

How’s it going? Tweak much?

Wow, nice eyes. You’re what I call Tweakalicious.

Hey, Tweakmeister: knock it off.

Good thing you’re shadowing me, since WE ARE IN THE TWEAK ZONE.

That nervous jaw-flapping thing is tweaktastic, Petra Jane.

Why are you following me everywhere? Are you feeling Tweakicidal?

If you don’t stop staring at me like that, I’m going to put you on Tweakicide Watch.

Maybe we could see if the vet would put you on Tweak-loft or Tweak-nax. I've heard they work wonders for dogs that have your condition. On the other hand, side effects include dry mouth and occasional ear twitching, so I'm not sure we want to go that route.

I’m getting Tweak Fatigue. Can’t you just act normal again?

FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD IN THIS WORLD, WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TWEAKING ALREADY!

A friend of mine called yesterday to chat about his adventures in online dating.

"I know you're not ready to get back out there," he said, "but when you are, here's a tip: don't post pictures of your dog online if you want to get a date."

He went on to tell me about a perplexing trend he had noticed on a certain matchmaking site he belonged to (eSanctimonious, perhaps? I can't remember) in which women posted photo after photo of themselves with their pets. "It's the opposite of hot," he sighed. "They're all reading 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and they're all holding a cat or a miniature dog. Bleh."

One woman sent him an e-card emblazoned with a photo of her cat Fluffy wearing a pair of bunny ears, inscribed: "Fluffy wishes you a Happy Easter!"

"What was she thinking?!" he groaned. "I hadn't even met her in person yet, and her CAT wishes me a Happy Easter? Dumb, dumb, dumb. I deleted her immediately."

I know that Internet dating sites have helped countless singletons find their happy ever after, but I'm 110% sure they're not for me, so after I finished wiping away the tears of laughter over my friend's story, I said: SO THAT MEANS I CAN POST PICTURES OF MY DOG ALL DAY LONG!

"You go, girl," he replied.

"Because the only other thing I can think of that would be as much fun as dating - online or off - would be handing my heart to a butcher and asking him to run it through a meat grinder a few times."

"Yeah, posting pictures of Petra might be a good idea," my friend replied.

"And then asking the butcher, if he wouldn't mind, to hold a blowtorch to it for a minute or two, to make the raw, pulpy bits nice and crispy."

"Start posting those pictures immediately," he said.

Not that I'm planning on turning my blog into Photo Shrine to Petra, but I could. Hypothetically.

But YOU! If you're Single in San Francisco, and you're thinking about sending out a flirtatious e-card signed "With Hugs & Smooches From Fluffy and Me" - you might want to scrap those plans in a jiffy.

After months of ignoring the dog toys I lavished upon her, Petra has finally started to realize that playing with inanimate fluffy things can be fun! When you're bored or frustrated, you can fling them into the air and bash them against the floor. It's quite therapeutic. Sometimes we do it together, a mother-daughter bonding experience that ends in a palm-to-paw high five.

Sadly, she wore out poor Princess. I found her outside this afternoon, dirty and neglected. Her squeaker doesn't work any longer, and that makes her booooring. I think you can buy new squeakers and sew them back inside, but somehow I don't think I'll get around to it.

The wine glasses have been polished and returned to their cabinet, and the leftover turkey has been tucked away in the refrigerator. Thanksgiving Weekend is nearly over.

I don’t want it to slip away without mentioning how grateful I am.

If you’ve read between the lines in my (scant) posts over the last few months, you know that it’s been a tough year for me on the personal front. There has been much sadness, and many tears, and more sleepless nights than I can count. My heart is still raw and punky and sore, and summoning my usual optimism has felt like a chore.

But that's not the whole story. Not by a long shot. I could easily stay stuck on the sad, discordant events of 2007, but
the fact is that they’re only a small part of the rich narrative that has run through the year.

This weekend, I’ve taken some time to reflect on all that is good and precious and true in my life. There is so much – it makes me weak in the knees when I think of it. I’m a blessed girl, truly I am.

One year ago, I signed my name on a stack of papers that made me the legal owner of a white greyhound with pink, spotted skin and black-tipped ears. That same day, she had flown into the Oakland Airport from Colorado, where she was a regular on the racetrack. She was woozy and out of sorts from the flight.

She and I looked each other over, wondering what lay ahead. I was still uncertain if I was making the right choice; did I really want a creature who would rely on me for food and water and exercise and entertainment? I wasn’t sure, but her gentle brown eyes made me feel like it was worth a try.

The woman who facilitated the adoption advised me to purchase a collection of toys – her greyhound was addicted to toys, she told me, and carried them from room to room.

Determined to be the best greyhound mama ever, I bought squeaky toys, fluffy toys, toys in funny shapes. Petra eyed them suspiciously, then proceeded to ignore them. According to what I’ve learned about these racing hounds, she spent the first three years of her life in a small, 3 x 4 foot crate. Once a day, she was let out to go to the bathroom. Once a week, she got to escape her little world and race. Race day was the best day, because she was fed twice a day instead of the usual single time.

Of course she didn’t know how to play with toys. Clearly, I had to teach her, and so I got down on the floor and played with them myself.

Look! This toy is squeaking! Haaa! I’m flopping around on the floor with a stuffed octopus! This is so much fun, I can hardly stand it!

She looked at me sternly, as if to say: this isn’t very mama-like behavior, you know, and then she put her head between her paws.

PS: Petra is almost totally recovered now, though her ordeal did leave a couple of souvenirs; she has a long, crooked pink scar on her left hip, and the wound on her back is healed, but the hair hasn't grown all the way over it yet, so it still looks funny. For a couple of weeks after the incident, walks were scary for her; any time a car whizzed by, she
stopped and pressed against my leg, eyes wide. Now
she's once again beside herself with excitement when I take out the leash, and she's back to doing what she does best: sniffing and exploring and - whenever we can - going running.

Almost every day, I look at her and think: I still can't believe you're really here. Thank you to the SFPD and all of the wonderful people at Golden Gate Greyhound Adoption for all of your help!

Four days ago, we flew from Morocco to Paris, anticipating our last week of vacation. We checked in to our hotel, and were getting ready to hit the town when I logged on to my e-mail, and found this terrible message: our adopted greyhound, Petra, had escaped from her pet sitter in the Mission District.

She had been spotted by CHP running on Highway 101 near Caesar Chavez; the officer saw her duck off the highway, but was unable to follow her further.

We were dumbstruck. From thousands of miles away, we felt helpless and utterly miserable.

My sweetheart immediately dialed to the airlines, and managed to finagle a flight from Paris to London, and London to San Francisco the next day. By the time we hit the ground at SFO on Saturday afternoon, Petra had been missing for more than 48 hours, and had not been seen by anyone since the CHP sighting.

We raced home, dropped off our baggage, changed into sneakers, and headed out to the Mission. From Caesar Chavez, she could have gone in any direction – up to Bernal Heights, or over to Potrero. We drove slowly, our eyes straining at every white flash, every corner, every green space where she might hunker down and hide.

The Golden State Greyhound Adoption group was on alert; messages flew back and forth among the other adopters. They and others rallied to help, placing ads on Craigslist and posting flyers, even driving out to help search.

By Sunday night, we were dizzy with exhaustion. We were so tired that we considered pulling over to the side of the road and resting in the car instead of driving home. I hit a low point that night, imagining her out there in the cold. How long could she survive on the streets?